Historic Pump House in Brackenridge Park to be restored

1of5The San Antonio Conservation Society on Tuesday will announce its $300,000 in grant funding for restoration of the old Pump House No. 1 at Brackenridge Park.Photo: Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

2of5The San Antonio Conservation Society, as part of the city’s 300th brithday celebration, will help pay for the restoration of the old Pump House No. 1 at Brackenridge Park. It was built with large blocks of limestone.Photo: Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

3of5The building will undergo foundation, roof and other structural repairs and installation of electricity and water service. Once completed, Pump House No. 1 could be used for food service or meetings.Photo: Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

4of5Bathers at the swimming beach in Brackenridge park could relax in the river while watching movies projected on a screen attached to the pump house. These bathers, in a circa-1910 photo, arrived early for the evening film.Photo: Courtesy photo /Institute of Texas Cultures

5of5Pump House No. 1, believed to be the oldest industrial building still standing in San Antonio, was built about 1877. When this photo was taken in 2012, it was nearly obscured by vegetation along the San Antonio River in Brackenridge Park.Photo: Jennifer Whitney /Special to the Express-News

A long-neglected 1800s water works structure in Brackenridge Park will be repaired and restored, possibly as a venue for food service or gatherings.

The San Antonio Conservation Society will hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss its grant, symbolically set at $300,000 in pledged funds to celebrate San Antonio’s Tricentennial — the 300th anniversary of the 1718 founding of the first Spanish colonial mission, presidio and villa.

Vincent Michael, the society’s executive director, said the project, also backed with about $880,000 in 2017 city bond funds, will bring new life to the circa-1877 Pump House No. 1.

“It’s really an attractive building, with nice, big dressed blocks of limestone,” Michael said. “We don’t have a final use for it yet. It’s a small space, but it could be something like a cafe or meeting room. It has been an overlooked site.”

The grant will be administered in $100,000 installments in June of 2018, 2019 and 2020. The City Council on Thursday adopted an agreement for the project, chosen by the conservation society as one that “exemplifies their contribution to preservation and restoration of San Antonio’s rich historic fabric,” according to a staff memo.

The building is on the park’s north end, off of Brackenridge Drive, just south of Hildebrand Avenue, immediately southwest of the Lambert Beach softball field. It’s next to an 1890 iron truss bridge used by vehicles and pedestrians, and across the San Antonio River from Joske Pavilion.

Under the agreement, the city will submit rehabilitation plans to the society for review and allow the group “reasonable access” to the site during the public outreach, design and construction phases. The building will undergo foundation, roof and other structural repairs and installation of electricity and water service.

According to Express-News articles, the city contracted with Jean Baptiste LaCoste to build the two-story structure, which had a wheel on the lower level to harness river flows and drive pumps that sent water south. The town had previously suffered from typhoid, malaria and cholera outbreaks while using the river and acequias, dating to the 1700s, for water.

By 1883, the water works system was in the full ownership of banker George Brackenridge. Once fully developed, it carried water east to a hill in the area of today’s San Antonio Botanical Garden, feeding a reservoir whose supply could then flow by gravity south to the town.

The pump house, in a bend of the river, has fallen into disrepair and neglect, becoming overwhelmed at times with vines and other vegetation. According to a 2011 nomination of the park to the National Register of Historic Places, it is the “oldest intact industrial building remaining in San Antonio.” The nomination prepared by historian Maria Watson Pfeiffer and archaeologist Steve Tomka states it was built with smooth-finished, cut limestone from the city rock quarry a short distance to the south.

Another pump house, No. 2, built in 1880s, was converted in the 1920s to a studio where artist Gutzon Borglum formed early images of George Washington and other presidents in models for Mount Rushmore. That structure has been restored, opening in 2011 as an events center at the Brackenridge Park Golf Course.

Scott Huddleston is a veteran staff writer at the San Antonio Express-News covering Bexar County Commissioners Court and county government.

He has been a reporter at the Express-News since 1985, covering a variety of issues, including public safety, flooding, transportation, military and veterans affairs, history and local government.

Huddleston covered the final construction phase of the SBC Center -- now AT&T Center, where the Spurs play -- in 2002, and wrote "Then&Now," a weekly historical feature, for the Sunday Metro section from 2001-2006.